Leon looked as though he were ready to instigate a war that would never end, his knuckles white with an unspent, violent rage. But in a fraction of a second, a sudden, heavy stillness washed over him.

He deliberately let go of the silver teapot, leaving it on the tray, and sat down on the sofa directly beside Olivia. He adjusted his posture, completely and utterly ignoring Matthias as if the man were nothing more than a hollow draft passing through the room.

​"When did you find out that he..." Leon trailed off, his voice quiet.

​"Yesterday," Olivia replied flatly.

​"Mmh. I see." Leon turned his head to study her closely. Even though she was currently forcing a faint, indifferent smile and chewing on her candy, he immediately caught the subtle swelling around her eyes. It was a glaring, undeniable sign; despite her thick armor, she had spent the night weeping.

​His expression softened with a fierce, quiet concern. "Are you alright now?"

​"Somewhat," she murmured, brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "Either way, I am going to my chambers to rest."

​"Yes, you should," Leon agreed softly.

​Olivia stood up, smoothing the skirts of her dark gown as she prepared to leave the suffocating drawing room. But before she could take a single step toward the door, Matthias moved with a desperate, reckless speed, his iron-clad hand snapping forward to grip her wrist.

​"Wait," Matthias commanded, his voice rough, laced with a raw, bleeding panic. "We haven’t finished our conversation, Olivia."

​Olivia stopped. She slowly turned her head, looking down at his hand, then up at his face with a gaze so frozen it could have turned the room to stone. "I have already finished mine."

​Matthias didn’t release his grip, his fingers tightening in a desperate plea.

​Instantly, Leon was on his feet. Striding forward like an unyielding wall, he reached down, caught Matthias’s forearm, and violently pried his hand away from Olivia’s wrist, shoving it back.

​"If she wanted to speak to you, she would have," Leon spat, stepping directly between them to shield her. "So leave her the hell alone."

​Without casting another glance behind her, Olivia walked out of the drawing room, closing the heavy oak doors and leaving the two brothers alone with the wreckage of their past.

​Matthias took a sharp, uneven breath, his lips parting as he desperately tried to form a justification, an explanation—anything to bridge the sudden chasm between them. But as he looked at Leon, the words died in his throat. Leon’s eyes weren’t filled with the chaotic fury from moments before; they were dead, hollow, and colder than even Olivia’s had been. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

​"I am going to ask you one single question, Matthias," Leon spoke, his voice dangerously flat.

​Matthias braced himself, fully expecting the inevitable, agonizing interrogation. He expected Leon to scream at him, to ask why he had faked his death, why he had let his own blood mourn and break for weeks.

​"Matthias," Leon locked his piercing gaze onto his brother’s face. "Is the curse over, or not?"

​Matthias went completely rigid, the air escaping his lungs in a sharp wheeze. "Ah... No. It... it is still there."

​A bitter, humorless shadow passed over Leon’s face as he slowly walked past him, his steps heavy with finality. "Then, please, pack your things and get the hell out of this Duchy."

​Matthias flinched as if he had been struck. "Leon—"

​"You are unstable," Leon cut him off, his tone an unyielding winter. "And Olivia is currently incredibly weak. Therefore, return to wherever it is you came from. If you stay here, I will not be capable of protecting her from you."

​The words were brutally harsh, cutting straight through Matthias’s pride, but as he stood there in his hollow armor, he knew his brother was entirely right. He was a ticking time bomb, a vessel carrying a dark, volatile malice.

​Matthias bowed his head, the crushing weight of his isolation settling deep into his chest.

​"Fine," Matthias whispered, his voice cracking under the strain. "I’ll leave. I have verified that the two of you are safe... so I will leave."

Olivia sat in the heavy silence of her bedchamber, the chaotic storm of the drawing room finally locked outside. Black settled onto the edge of the chaise beside her, his small, familiar paws gently nudging and playing with the cascading strands of her hair just as he always did.

​Once—in a past life that felt decades away—the mere sight of Matthias standing before her would have shattered all her restraint. She would have thrown herself into his arms, burying her face in his chest, drowning in the absolute relief of his warmth. But now? The sheer, suffocating weight of his deception had turned even looking at his face into an agonizing ordeal. The betrayal was an invisible wall, sharp and unyielding.

​Yet, beneath the thick layers of her built-up armor, a faint, fragile spark of pure joy refused to die. The man she loved was alive. He wasn’t a decaying corpse in a cold, forgotten grave; he was breathing.

​A bittersweet, melancholy smile slowly pulled at the corners of her lips, her eyes softening as she looked at Black.

​"My intuition was right once again..." she whispered, her voice barely a breath in the quiet room. She gently stroked Black’s fur, her chest heaving with a trembling sigh. "He isn’t dead. And yet... I don’t even know whether I should weep from the agony of it, or celebrate."

​Downstairs, the heavy silence of the castle echoed a different kind of heartbreak. Leon, who had just weaponized his cold hostility to banish his own blood from the estate, stood alone in the dim corridor. The mask of the ruthless protector slipped, his shoulders trembling as silent tears finally spilled from his eyes. In the deepest, hidden corners of his soul, Leon was weeping with a profound, violent joy that his brother was still walking this earth.

​Everyone was drowning in the emotional aftermath of his return. Except for Matthias.

​As he stepped out of the grand gates and into the bleak, unforgiving morning air, the dark iron of his armor felt heavier than it ever had in battle. There was no comfort in his survival, no victory in his tactical silence. The agonizing, relentless realization of what he had broken was a slow poison in his veins. He had saved their lives, but in doing so, he had utterly shattered their trust.

​And as the gates of Locronan closed behind him, the suffocating, murderous regret was slowly killing him from the inside out.

The days that followed crawled by in a heavy, monotonous rhythm, yet a fragile sense of peace slowly began to weave itself back into the stones of Locronan Castle. The suffocating depression that had tightly gripped Olivia for weeks finally began to recede.

Though she still wore her dark veil—a calculated, necessary precaution to ensure not a single soul suspected Matthias was walking the earth—her steps had regained their sharp, unyielding purpose. Beside her, Leon’s volatile, explosive edge had softened into a quiet, focused calm. It was as if the estate was finally breathing again.

​But on the opposite side of the capital, the Imperial Palace was nothing more than a grand, gilded graveyard.

​An oppressive, terrifying silence hung over its corridors. The Empress **Alisha** remained tightly locked away in her chambers, a prisoner of her own failed treason, while Kyle moved through the palace like a shadow, his expression permanently twisted in a dark, restless agitation. Deep within those same walls, Matthias continued to play his part as a nameless, masked soldier—submerging his grief and executing his secret strategies in absolute isolation.

​The only shimmering light in that bleak fortress was the Emperor’s miraculous recovery. The counter-reaction of the neutralized toxins had worked perfectly; His Majesty was finally back on his feet, moving through his private chambers with a steady, commanding stride, completely free from the assistance of his physicians.

​"Your Majesty, you have only just recovered," his chief aide spoke, his voice trembling with deep concern as he stood before the heavy mahogany desk. "You cannot return to these grueling state affairs so quickly. Please, you must rest."

​The Emperor didn’t stop. He casually signed the parchment before him, his piercing gaze lifting with the cold, absolute authority of a ruler who had just stared death in the face.

​"My duties will not execute themselves, William," the Emperor replied, his deep voice carrying its old, formidable resonance. "Furthermore... I have a momentous announcement to make at today’s grand council meeting."

The grand council chamber was thick with a suffocating, collective holding of breath as the Emperor Lucius finally stood. His sharp, imposing gaze swept over the gathered nobility, freezing any unspoken murmurs instantly.

​"I have gathered you all here today to inform you of my final decree regarding Her Majesty," Lucius began, his deep voice carrying a terrifying, resonant echo against the high marble walls. "Since I am well aware that several of you have been whispering and questioning her sudden absence."

​

​"I have decided that from this moment onward, I no longer share any bond, sacred or legal, with Miss Alisha."

​A collective, sharp gasp rippled through the rows of nobles. Miss Alisha. Stripping her of her name in public was a political execution in itself.